16 September 11:30 Room D105

Building Bridges to Digital Cultures Beyond the University

Maia Wright Texas State University

This paper presents a case study of a hybrid course that was developed to go beyond the "edge" of the institution, and engage students directly in community-based design research beyond the walls of the university. The course is offered as a hybrid online and face-to-face course for graduate communication design students, with a focus on designing for positive social impact. Structuring the course to meet online every other week allows the students to spend those weeks away from the classroom conducting on-site research within a local community organization of their choosing.

In collaboration with their selected organization, each student acts as a "designer in residence" for the semester, and develops a design proposal to benefit the organization and the community it serves. The online component of the course includes threaded discussion forums and a shared Evernote notebook to post research findings and creative process work. The course emphasizes the design research process, and students articulate each step of their process both online and in face-to-face discussions. One of the interesting aspects of this course is that the local communities with which the students choose to work represent a spectrum of digital cultures.

Some of the community groups use the latest digital technology, while others communicate with their members primarily in person or via telephone. The resulting design proposals run the gamut from the very low-tech (empty cereal boxes repurposed as newsletters and DIY craft kits) to the highly digital (mobile apps and social media). Students are challenged to adapt their practice to the digital culture of the community they are serving.

This presentation will offer an example of how a hybrid course structure can allow for increased learning experiences outside of the classroom. Taking advantage of online learning tools can afford students the opportunity to spend more time in the field for community-based research, empathy building, and human-centered design methods. Once they begin their research, students find themselves bridging the distance between the digital learning culture of our academic program, and the digital culture of the community in which they have chosen to embed themselves. This presentation aims to spark discussion about the ways in which we can create experiences for our students that go beyond the edges of the university, and beyond their familiar digital culture.

Making digital ‘alternatives’ work: Bucks New University’s New Model Dissertation in its first year

Ray Batchelor Bucks New University

In the 21st century, what should we expect a dissertation to do for art and design students emerging into a world where complex ideas are routinely expressed ways other than that of the illustrated, academic texts conventionally demanded of them? This year, for the first time at Bucks New University, near London, England, we ran ‘The New Model Dissertation’, an offer to students to consider preparing a Dissertation in an Alternative Format.

The results are exciting, challenging and promising. Our offer was developed through three years of research. We have retained the Standard Format Dissertation offer – the conventional written, illustrated and annotated study – because it has been of proven worth to many (but by no means all) students and embodies some key qualities we wish to preserve and develop. Under the strap line ‘All Dissertations are Equal’, we have put in place a series of mechanisms designed to ensure direct equivalence between the two options, in terms the nature of the offer to students; what it is we demand of them; what it is we do to support them; how we assess their work, once it is submitted.

We needed to do all we could to make sure no-one imagined the Alternative Format was a ‘soft option’. At the centre are five Common Principles, so, both Alternative and Standard Format Dissertations must: relate to art and design; communicate effectively to an identified audience; resemble a format found in the professional or academic world; be supported by credible, identifiable research sources; answer a research question using analysis of that research to argue a point of view. Students submit a ‘Pitch’ at the end of the second year of their three-year courses. The Pitch must persuade us that what they propose is practical. We oblige them to reflect not only on the skills they already have, or could develop, but also to asses the extent to which they have opportunities legitimately to rely on the informal input of friends and family – a commonplace practice rarely openly spoken of. With two further ‘safety nets’ for students including a ‘first draft or iteration’ students submit in the third year leaving time to devote themselves to the final body of studio work.

All dissertations are assessed using identical assessment criteria based on the Common Principles. Having now assessed the first cohort of Dissertations of both formats, we are pleased to report that the process has been made to work and that, in addition, of the students who have submitted Alternative Format work, there are clear signs these are not only viable, they are also the direct equivalent (or to the individual student, the superior) of Standard Format work, in that they afford comparable opportunities to hone skills of analysis, reasoning and communication of the kinds at and at a level which we believe students will find will be of life long value.

Teaching Technology through an Integrative Outcome Driven Curriculum

Keith Shapiro Penn State

Photography was the first high technology visual medium. Since its development in the 1830’s, the historic trend has been to undergo significant technological transformations, which required substantial reeducation for photographers every 15 to 25 years. Today however, due to the shift from analog to digital imaging technology, we can expect the future rate of change to increase dramatically and follow the advances in other digital technologies. This poses significant problems for teachers since the techniques we teach students today may have a very short practical shelf life for the student after graduation.

Therefore, if education will retain long term relevance for students it is essential to teach beyond current technology and create curriculum that will prepare them to adapt to a future full of cultural, technical and creative unknowns. Photo teachers have traditionally focused on teaching technical processes and ideas in photography instruction. For good reason, since creating a photograph using film required very specialized, almost arcane, darkroom and camera skills. However, in our modern digital word students are weaned on technology and bring a level of technical sophistication to the classroom that often rivals their instructors. We now teach students who have grown up interacting with technology in a variety of virtual realities. They come to us with basic abilities and sensibilities unheard of a generation ago.

At Penn State, we have observed that our beginning-level technically oriented curriculum, which once heavily attracted students now generates very little interest and our enrollments are falling dramatically. Students already have basic knowledge and seek something of greater relevance and challenge. We need to change. Developing college course curriculum from design to final approval can take a long time and involve multiple layers of painful byzantine review reducing the incentive to change curriculum in an ongoing manner.

Yet, modern curriculum must be flexible enough to adapt to changing time without the need for constant revision. Therefore, when designing a new curriculum we seek to address several issues. Nimble curricular designs can keep courses relevant without frequent rewrites; integrative learning outcomes allow the course to bridge disciplinary walls, which tend to break down over time; and curricular design focused on teaching students how to learn also teaches them how to remain current throughout their careers.

In our presentation, we intend to present how Penn State is working to solving these difficulties by creating a new problem-based-learning photo curriculum, where we teach technology using an outcome based method that focuses on peer assessment and a flexible approach to applying a variety of assessable AAC&U learning values. One unique feature of our curriculum is that we see photography as an interdisciplinary bridge-medium, which crosses traditional domains. Therefore, we encompass a variety of learning values far beyond the expected Creative Thinking Values to include ethical reasoning, critical thinking, information literacy, inquiry/analysis, and even integrative learning. Through this, we hope to embrace a more integrative approach to teaching this expansive medium, which we believe has relevance to a variety of digital disciplines beyond photography.